Help With EMDR

[Stephani8o]

Last week I hit a wall during emdr. In past sessions, I've dealt with physical abuse and that went ok but now I'm dealing with the sexual abuse and it's 10x harder.

I could comfort myself for what had happened but that's it. It was still happening. I tried to bring in my protector but my protector protects me without changing what happened. Then I can make connections and rethink what happened and my views on it.

She said maybe I was trying to rationalize too much and had an example of the protector beating up the dude and rescuing the girl and changing the whole memory. I can't change the memory though. I left feeling pretty hopeless and defeated. Mainly because it didn't matter what I changed, it would keep happening. I know I should focus on one memory.

I've been thinking all week about how to get unstuck but I'm still stuck. It would be nice to make progress tomorrow. Any ideas?

 

[ButterflyBean]

This may be an absolute longshot, so disregard if unhelpful. Could you make feeling stuck the actual target? Like right now I’m triggered by feelings of abandonment for various reasons, so instead of focusing on a specific memory, I just want to “go with that“ feeling. My therapist usually takes my lead with regard to what we target and work on, so just an idea for you to consider as well. Also, while your protector resource can’t change what happened, can you imagine yourself changing anything about the situation?

 

[Stephani8o]

This may be an absolute longshot, so disregard if unhelpful. Could you make feeling stuck the actual target? Like right now I’m triggered by feelings of abandonment for various reasons, so instead of focusing on a specific memory, I just want to “go with that“ feeling. My therapist usually takes my lead with regard to what we target and work on, so just an idea for you to consider as well. Also, while your protector resource can’t change what happened, can you imagine yourself changing anything about the situation?

Maybe going with that stuck feeling is something to work on because I wish things wouldn't have happened but I felt/feel powerless to change anything because I was young and then it feels pointless to try because it kept happening. There's a long story there. I knew this wasn't going to be easy. The example she gave seemed way too easy and my brain won't go there until I deal with those blocks - powerless and pointless

 

[ButterflyBean]

The example she gave seemed way too easy and my brain won't go there until I deal with those blocks - powerless and pointless.

Seems like you have a great start to the standard protocol. The target could be feeling stuck, and the negative cognition could be that you feel powerless; anything you try to do to change your circumstances is pointless. The question now is, would you like to have power and/or control of your current situation? What would the positive cognition be?

 

[Wendell_R]

In my EMDR session this week, I worked on some memories this past week that were really hard to change. I'm a little boy who hears my parents having loud sex, and I feel deeply lonely. I had trouble changing the memory and we had to take several tries at it. So the path we took included:

• having a safe protector promise to talk to my parents later for me
• finding a safe place for me (the floor of my bedroom), where my friends could join me
• learning that I wasn't at fault or in trouble for hearing something. (This one is huge--even if the memory doesn't go away, knowing that I wasn't at fault.)
• learning that it is okay to speak up later about what I wanted (love and attention for me).

Afterward, the memory is still there, but it's as if the memory is farther away. Looking back, a lot of what we did wasn't so much about changing the memory itself as to change what could happen around the edges of the memory.

Good luck! It sounds like you're headed in the right direction, and this is tough stuff to work through!

 

[Stephani8o]

It's been a week but we scheduled a two hour session so I couldn't avoid and run out of time. I think some of the previous work did help because it didn't get as high on the discomfort scale. I ended up having to talk about what happened first to stop avoiding and connect to those feelings. I really did not want to do that. Pretty much I described the time I was 4 and my father had me perform oral sex on him. The fact I can even share it is progress. A big part of it was protecting the young me and it was beautiful. I don't buy into the inner child but it keeps happening. Now I know my inner childs true happy place.

 

[Wendell_R]

The fact I can even share it is progress. A big part of it was protecting the young me and it was beautiful.

That sounds like huge progress! You've been really brave to go there. ?

I don't buy into the inner child but it keeps happening.

I'm a believer in figuring out what works for each of us. I'm super functional in the real world, and I score really low on the dissociation scale. But multiple types of therapy really didn't do anything for me and I was stuck with a lot of inner conflict & trauma. I did a lot of reading about therapy, and whenever I read about dissociated parts, I kept on experiencing some sense of "That's me!" That it kept happening was my way of knowing it is the right path. Part of me still doesn't believe it. The way I look at it now, my parts (or maybe for you, your inner child) are a fast way for me to access parts of my brain/memories that are fractured. I can get to places now within a minute that were completely shut off before.